Elon finds right ingredients to break through, beat Furman

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Good things that had been lost were found, and they came bundled together in one gratifying package for Elon.

Game-changing plays, game-clinching defense, a long-sought road victory and, perhaps above all else, confidence were missing no more after the Phoenix fended off Furman 28-25 on Saturday afternoon in Southern Conference football at Paladin Stadium.

There was new joy present, too, at the end of this hot afternoon, with cheers bursting from the visiting locker room here, unable to be muffled by the brick walls and closed metal door.

“We need this as a program, there’s no doubt about it,” Elon coach Jason Swepson said. “This is going to go a long way.”

Elon (2-4 overall, 1-1 Southern Conference) stopped a seven-game losing streak on the road and won away from home for the first time since Nov. 12, 2011 — its last trip to this stadium — by delivering a pair of defensive stops during the final six minutes that preserved a shrinking lead and allowed the Phoenix to withstand a scoreless second half on offense.

Both of those decisive situations were set in motion by Elon true freshman David Petroni’s booming punts of 54 and 59 yards that twice pinned the Paladins (2-3, 1-1), down to one healthy quarterback —third-stringer Duncan Fletcher — inside their own 15-yard line.

“You’ve got to learn how to win and you’ve got to be in that position and for the defense, we needed that,” Elon safety Chandler Wrightenberry said. “There’s been games this year, going back into last year, where the defense had to get a stop and we haven’t gotten it.”

Defensive tackle Dustin Ruff’s third-down pressure on Fletcher forced Furman to punt with about five minutes left. Less than two minutes remained when the Paladins, out of timeouts, went for a fourth-and-2 from their own 31 — and linebacker John Silas, the redshirt freshman who supplied a season-high 12 tackles, delivered one last time for Elon.

Silas smothered a short route by Furman receiver Andrej Suttles just past the line of scrimmage and batted away Fletcher’s fourth-down throw. That sent Elon’s offense onto the field for kneel-downs and secured the Phoenix’s first victory against a Division I opponent since Oct. 20 of last year.

“Fourth and short, I knew they were going to do that,” Silas said. “We studied them on film and I tried to bait him into throwing it.

“That was pretty sweet. I wanted the interception, but I had to just make sure I got the knock down.”

That Elon would have to navigate crunch time and rely on clutch defense seemed like an implausible proposition a period earlier, when the Phoenix, leading by 18 points, had driven inside the Furman 10 and was poised to increase its cushion late in the third quarter.

Tracey Coppedge’s fumble 4 yards shy of the end zone altered everything, though. Furman safety Greg Worthy drilled Coppedge (58 rushing yards) with a helmet-on-the-forearm hit that jarred the ball loose and knocked the Elon running back out of the game with a wrist injury.

Long scoring drives of 83 and 94 yards followed from Furman in a nine-minute span, waking the sleepy home crowd.

Hank McCloud’s 3-yard touchdown run and Fletcher’s diving two-point conversion pulled the Paladins within 28-18. Then McCloud scampered in on a 29-yard touchdown catch out of the backfield, chopping Elon’s lead to three with 7:03 left.

“We had a chance for a knockout punch,” Swepson said, referring to Coppedge’s lost fumble, his fourth of the season. “Momentum changed just like that. It was amazing.”

Momentum-shifters that Elon sorely had lacked furnished the foundation Saturday.

Wrightenberry said he spied the eyes of Terry Robinson, Furman’s change-of-pace quarterback, and he pounced, grabbing a leaping interception and returning it 33 yards for a touchdown — he was spinning and stretching by the time he reached the goal line — that put the Phoenix up 14-7.

Mike Quinn’s 73-yard touchdown bomb to Rasaun Rorie was the byproduct of Furman’s busted defensive coverage and stamped an exclamation point on Elon’s next possession to push the Phoenix ahead 21-10 early in the second quarter.

That was a third-and-8 during which Quinn (11 of 17, 175 passing yards) stepped up, out of the pocket and angled toward the sideline, scrambling that sucked in the Paladins’ defensive backs. Rorie (three catches for 112 yards) was left open deep, utterly alone, in fact, almost as if he had stepped off the Elon sideline and into the playing field.

“I was waving my hand, trying to get the ball,” Rorie said. “The first thing that goes through your head is ‘don’t drop it,’ because I was so wide open. It was way up there. I had to wait for it to come down.”

Elon was oozing previously unforeseen confidence by that juncture.

And it cranked up another notch when defensive end Jay Brown, jumping with his hands up to contest a Fletcher pass, snatched an interception. The Phoenix cashed in three plays later and increased its lead to 28-10 on Karl Bostick’s 8-yard touchdown run 3:54 before halftime.

â–Ş EXTRA POINTS Â…: ElonÂ’s defense arrived having generated a total of two quarterback sacks and two interceptions on the season. By halftime Saturday, the Phoenix had two interceptions and three sacks in this game, with penetration from Silas, Ruff and Jordan Jones. Â… Elon finished the game with Bostick (67 rushing yards) as the only healthy member of its running back trio. B.J. Bennett, the teamÂ’s leading rusher on the season, suited up but didnÂ’t play due to an ankle injury that bounced him from ElonÂ’s previous game. Coppedge didnÂ’t return after hurting his wrist at the 4:23 mark of the third quarter. Â… Meanwhile, Furman turned even thinner at quarterback. Reese Hannon, the PaladinsÂ’ typical starter, didnÂ’t suit up with a knee injury, so Fletcher, a true freshman, made his first career start. Robinson, who rotated in as a running threat, suffered a possibly devastating knee injury early in the second half on a quarterback keeper. Â… Fletcher went 18 of 25 for 184 yards in the second half to finish with 255 passing yards. McCloud, FurmanÂ’s running back, gained 116 yards on 20 carries. Â… Other than RorieÂ’s 73-yard bomb and his 35-yard gain on a receiver screen, Elon mostly operated in ball-control mode. The PhoenixÂ’s rushing attempts (41) more than doubled QuinnÂ’s passing attempts (17). Â… Elon picked up its third straight narrow victory at Furman and has won five of the last six meetings with the Paladins.